


quiet quiet

by justsomerain



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Autism, Autistic Character, Family, Gen, Implied Relationships, POV Second Person, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rey Skywalker, Rey-Centric, Sensory Overload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 18:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6205297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomerain/pseuds/justsomerain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: "Rey lived in a desert her whole life and (bar once or twice every day at most) never was with other people near her long. So, upon joining the Resistance, she is shocked by all the noise there is constantly."</p>
            </blockquote>





	quiet quiet

The desert is quiet.

The only things you can hear there, for miles and miles, is the wind, and the sand gliding over the wrecked carcasses of the ships that were destroyed what seems like almost an age ago, the occasional speeder coming by, a sign that if you want to keep your loot to yourself, you better work quickly. The only other sound during the day is the slapping of your feet against the metal of the ships, echoing around inside the hollow shells.

Nights are even more quiet, when the only thing you can hear for miles is the settling of the AT-AT walker you live in, creaking around you, and the cries of animals you better stay far away from if you want to live to get only two portions for a day’s work again.

The only time it’s loud is during the sandstorms, when the wind shrieks in your ears, even from the safety of your little AT-AT home, hidden away behind metal plating, waiting for the winds to die down so you can dig yourself out and dig up whatever the wind laid bare. That is, of course, if you’re not weak from the lack of food, because a long sandstorm means no working, and no working means no portions.

(That’s not the most eerie thing about the storms, the eeriest thing is how just before a sandstorm the desert becomes even more quiet, and it’s like you can hear the sweat trickling down your back.)

There’s only one place in the desert that isn’t quiet, and that’s Niima Outpost, where people of all species gather to bring their offerings to Unkar Plutt, in the hopes that the crook will pay them well for their finds, so they can live to starve another day. The chatter of those who work together, the scraping of bristles on parts to be cleaned, the way the happabore slobber the water from their trough.

Sometimes it’s not certain what is worse, the amount of noise, or the fact that you will again be underpaid for your work. After all, you’re used to living on the edge of starvation, it’s a familiar hurt. 

The noise is probably worse.

And when you leave the planet everything is loud, but then it is all overwhelming, not just the noise, but the sights, the smells, the people. You have people of your own now, people who came back for you, who saved your life, and so, for a time, you deal with it, you cope, and really there is no time to break down over sounds, because so much happens.

An old woman who tells you you have a destiny to fulfil, being tortured and terrified (everything there sounds hollow, the people too, and underneath it all there is a mechanical hum), and fighting for your life and there is just no time for anything but surviving, which you excel at. 

You’ve survived for thirteen years.

You can survive this too.

The only question is if this person, your person, will survive it, because the monster that looks like a man cut him deep, and when you get to D'qar he is taken away from you immediately and the only comfort you have is a woman whose name and story you know and whose grief you share and whose embrace feels like coming home, so familiar is it.

And so you sit at his side for days, fixating only on the slow rise and fall of his chest, making sure it does still rise and fall, look at the meters and gauges surrounding him that seem like a different language to you but it’s calming to see the patterns, to see there are no changes, and you bear the sound of people working around you, of beeping and mechanical hums, and strangers coming to talk to you, touching your shoulder in sympathy. (You have to keep yourself from jerking away, they mean well, but their touch together with the sound is too much and you have to bear it, because you have to stay here watching over your person, the first person to ever come back for you.)

But you can’t sit there forever, and the pilot, Poe, he tells you “take some time for yourself, I’ve got him, I’ll watch him”, and he touches your forearm and you’re okay with it, because he cares too. Finn is his person too. And you do, or you try, taking time for yourself, and finally it hits you, all of it, near one of the hangars for the Resistance ships.

Even under the open sky, where things should be quieter, the people talking and working, the steady hammering on something metal echoing through the air, droids burbling along, even the sound of the wind is too much, and before you know what happened you find yourself in a corner in the hangar, hidden behind crates, hands over your ears, humming loudly to yourself so you can’t hear it you can’t hear anything.

You’re not sure how much time passes, but you don’t look up until there’s a touch on your shoulder, softly, gently, and it shocks you and you jerk back, eyes flying open.

The General is crouched down in front of you, brown eyes warm and kind and understanding, and as you open your mouth to defend yourself, she shakes her head with a smile, and you close it again.

“You know, we were worried about you when you were gone from your young man’s sickbed for so long.”

She looks you up and down, taking in the way you’re hunched in on yourself, shoulders drawn up to your ears as if that will block the sound, the way you carefully raise your head, tilt it to listen to the noise outside. 

“The hammering stopped. A simple request to take work to the other side of the base.”

Another warm smile that crinkles around her eyes as she reaches a hand out to you.

“My brother had the same issue. Still has. And sometimes I wonder…” She looks at you again and her face falls for a flicker of a moment, “Well, there’s other reasons, but I have to wonder if one of the reasons he left isn’t because it is so much quieter.”

When you take her hand, she gets up, pulling you along, into another embrace, folded into the small woman’s arms, and it’s good and quiet and when she speaks it’s softly, close to your head.

“We’ll help you figure it out.”

You believe her.


End file.
